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- Written by John J. Kerecz John J. Kerecz
Pain. Slowly creeping, insidious pain. Over the course of at least a decade, nagging pain in my left hip managed to permeate every corner of my life until I finally slid into depression. I wanted to crawl off in a leafy hollow and hide like a wounded animal.
I loved feeling strong and fit, but when pain robbed me of that physical prowess, I entered a dark zone of the spirit. Pain oppressed me daily in a thousand small ways. I did not go to an orthopedist, though, probably due to fear and denial.
Instead, I roamed through the margins of the internet looking for ideas, seeking relief in any “alternative” practice that offered a shred of hope. I tried a nutritional approach, adding glucosamine, chondroitin, and MSM (methylsulfonylmethane, a touted arthritis cure) to my regimen. I tried stretching and yoga. Nothing helped.
Sometimes, I would even get pain shooting all the way down my left leg to my toes.
I went to my chiropractor. He diagnosed that the general imbalance and pain in my hip was causing irritation of my sciatic nerve. The pain that sometimes radiated into my knee and foot also migrated up into my lower back. His treatments always left me feeling better, but only for a day or so.
Although I was able to rise above the pain on occasion, I felt like a hostage to it most of the time. “In pain” became the baseline of my existence. I was also acting as primary caregiver to my mother since my father passed. Two strokes and debilitating dementia had left her unable to care for herself.
All things considered, I was in a morbid frame of mind. When she died in January, I felt my own mortality shrug against the universal undertow that eventually takes us all away.
In February, I finally made the momentous appointment with the orthopedist. As he looked at the x-rays, it was immediately apparent that my decades of jogging, weight training, and karate had taken their toll. At 54, I had osteoarthritis in the joint, its cartilage had worn away, and there were bone spurs at the margins of the joint capsule.
In short, it was enough to produce a painful and disabling condition. Total joint replacement would be appropriate, and we scheduled my operation for March 23, 2016. The morning of the surgery, I reported to the pre-op department at quarter to eight in the morning, as instructed. From there, things moved swiftly. A nurse told me without ceremony to change into a backless hospital gown.
She put my street clothes in a clear plastic sack as if she were cataloging evidence at a crime scene. I climbed onto my gurney and IVs were started.
My anesthesiologist materialized and asked me a few questions. Was I allergic to latex? How about penicillin? My surgeon popped by to say hello. It was obvious that he was eager to commence the day’s business.
He made a curved incision, roughly 10 inches long, on the side of my left buttock. The surgical team carefully sectioned and retracted the muscles below, various glutei, until the head of the femur and the pelvic ilium were accessible.
They unceremoniously sawed off, inspected, and disposed of the head of my femur, exposing my pelvic socket, or acetabulum. In preparation to receive the replacement, they then reamed and smoothed the inside of the socket.
Next, with the aid of hammers and chisels, my surgeon fit the sharp end of a 9-inch, ball-topped spike down into my femur. He placed the ball into my acetabulum, and then reattached the ligament “capsule” over it, stitched the muscles back together, and closed my skin with metal staples. Good as new.
I woke up in post-op feeling savagely dissected and systematically reassembled. Fortunately, there are drugs to help with that, and I had little sense of time passing until I got up to my room.
The first full day was rough, but they did get me on my feet to road test the new joint. Contained within the metal frame of a walker, I was amazed just to be upright! As I lurched forward, the new joint itself didn’t hurt at all, but the surgical wound sure did.
The next day and with the help of a physical therapist, I managed a 50-foot trek down the hall and back. But by the time we got back to the room, I felt cored like an apple. I was nauseated, lightheaded, and my blood pressure dropped to 59/29. They changed my pain medication and kept me another night.
When the next morning’s bloodwork came back, the rounds doctor pronounced me fit for discharge. They took out the annoying plastic IV valves on my hand, and I was sent home in the custody of my girlfriend.
The surgical site was still very swollen. They had cut through a mighty wad of muscle, and it was 10 days before the surgical staples came out. I was still amazingly weak and would have to lie down a lot.
While resting, I would imagine that I was an injured explorer. Natives had found me unconscious in the jungle, a spear through my side. They’d taken me back to one of their mud-and-thatch huts to nurse me back to health, and here I was, lying on a mat, trying to keep the flies off my wound.
But then again, I was binge-watching the Travel and Discovery channels.
Over the next two months I progressed from using a walker, to using a cane, to taking walks as an unassisted biped again.
Seven weeks after surgery, I returned to my day job in information technology. I’ve now returned to most of the activities I love: walking, hiking, weightlifting, motorcycling, and all without the pain I thought would never go away.
The goal of joint replacement is to relieve pain, restore independence, and return you to an active lifestyle. If you have pain that is affecting your daily activities and even your mood, like it was for me, you or a loved one may be a good candidate for joint replacement surgery.